


Religious And A Little Mad

by searchingforpeter



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Nightmares, Religion, USS Caryl Fanfiction/Fanart Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2685260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/searchingforpeter/pseuds/searchingforpeter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Southern women like their men religious and a little mad. Carol had never thought much of it, not until she found Daryl Dixon spitting demons in his sleep.</p>
<p>Written for the USS Caryl’s ‘Heaven, hell, and Everything in between’ fanfiction/fanart challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Daryl Dixon didn't pray.  
  


He spat red demons in his sleep, each of them with real faces, old names, bloody mouths and hollow eyes. Grief attacked at night and it always wore a different mask. In the depths of the prison, all his cries could do was echo, shatter against the walls and fall upon other sleeping ears. No-one was any the wiser and he kept his demons hidden well between blankets, high in the perch.  
  


Carol had just put Judith down for the night when she first heard him. The perch creaked under his constantly shifting weight, groaning along with the wind outside the cell block walls. He mumbled something, hissed, spat, cursed. It had only been a few days since he'd returned from his search for his brother alone; the nightmares were sure to follow, Carol knew them well.  
  


The climb to the perch was one she was all too familiar with. One of the rungs creaked, another was a little loose, but she made her way up as if it was as basic as breathing.  
  


Daryl lay on his back, one arm pressed over his snarling mouth, another bent against the concrete, legs crooked and tangled in blankets. His brow creased, smoothed, bent into another frown. An echo rumbled from his throat, a crack of thunder around his Adam's Apple, and she swore she could see a flash of teeth where he bit into the skin of his forearm, subconsciously silencing himself.  
  


Carol had given up on praying, found no time for it, but she felt the need to pray for Daryl Dixon.  
  


Behind his arm, she could hear their names. Everyone they'd lost, everyone they'd never see again. Daryl choked against his arm and she moved towards him, inching through his burning bedding to relieve some of his burden. Getting his mouth away wasn't easy, she felt his teeth against her fingers one too many times, closer than any walker bite had ever come but with the same sort of shock to her gut that a close call caused. Daryl whimpered, frowned, teeth clattering as his mouth slammed shut around nothing.  
  


“ _Merle_...”  
  


His brother's name was a growling demon, thrown out from behind a locked jaw. Carol watched as he twitched in his sleep, hands clenching tight in the blankets, tracks of tears leaking from behind his closed eyes. She put her hand against his forehead and found him piping hot. Her knuckles were like ice, soft and freezing compared to his skin.  
  


When Daryl's eyes opened, he saw her there with a hand upon his forehead. Carol said nothing, Daryl remained silent. He blew out a breath that felt like a stinging bible verse, acidic on his tongue and painful in his chest, before closing his eyes again.  
  


She didn't pray for him that night. She stayed right there, like Mary at the feet of Christ, and kept his forehead cool and his hand in hers, tethering him to the real world. Dawn broke and no angels came to right the wrongs they'd faced, but she was still there.  
  


*****  
  


She made a habit of sitting with him at night. Carol turned in before everyone else whenever she could, just to make sure she wouldn't be exhausted the next morning. She managed to wake in time to chase away the demons that came for Daryl in his sleep, no matter the hour. She sat in the perch with him, found herself waking up there in the morning light once or twice, her hand still against his burning forehead. Daryl never looked anything other than peaceful once she had had a hand in ridding his dreams of monsters; his lips were still tight, but his eyes were still behind his eyelids and now frown creased his brow.  
  


The demons still came, though. Merle, his mama, her Sophia once or twice.  
  


Carol had cried with him, sang for him, tried to calm his feverish mutterings when he woke and wasn't quite here nor there. Daryl crackled when he woke between worlds. He split at the seams and damn near spoke in tongues, eyes half-lidded and teeth glinting bright against his bottom lip as he pulled on it. He found comfort in her embrace, but those nights were hardest for them both and he didn't stick around in the mornings. She had woken alone after one such night. There had been hours of crying and mumbling names that she hadn't been able to hear. Her arms had wound their way around his shoulders, her hands in his hair, legs around his knees, pulling him into the land of the living and away from the angels with bloody mouths and dead faces that she knew he could see.  
  


And still, come morning, he was gone.  
  


 _Hunting_ , Rick told her, nodding to the gates.  
  


Hours passed until he returned, safe and in one piece. Carol wanted to fume and lash out for leaving her alone, but he smiled and ducked his head as he handed off his kill, and she felt the storm in her chest dissipate. He fell into that same old habit, matching her step as they walked back up towards the prison.  
  


“Y'know,” Carol tried, nudging his shoulder with hers as they stopped outside of the cell block doors, “I had an aunt that told me this story, once. She said that she got it from some book or another, one I never read-”  
  


“Spit it out, woman.” Daryl gave a fond snort as she tripped over her words, explaining too much to be getting to the damn point.  
  


Carol rolled her eyes, folding her arms across her chest as she regarded him with a level stare. “She said that Southern women like their men religious and a little mad.”  
  


The silence that stretched between them then wasn't their usual sort. It didn't sit like a warm blanket about her shoulders and it didn't fit against Daryl like an old love. It was sharp at the edges, like broken glass, and Carol saw the flash of hurt that crossed Daryl's face when he tried to navigate around it to get into the cell block. On and on and on it stretched, painful and uncomfortable and holding them both hostage as Carol began to regret even bringing it up. She had meant it as a joke, a way of easily opening up the conversation about just what they were doing at night these days, what it meant for them, but she had opened her mouth too soon.  
  


“Don't believe in nothin' like God.” His voice was a snap, the crack of a whip, surprising her. “Ain't mad neither.”  
  


 *****  
 

Carol didn't apologise for what she'd said. She didn't have the chance to. When she woke in the night, it was to the sound of her cell's curtain shuffling and a figure filled the doorway, moving slow and casting a dark shadow across her bunk. Her hand went for her knife, fingers curling around the handle as she slid from under the covers as quietly as she could.  
  


“Put it down before ya hurt someone.” Daryl grumbled.  
  


She sagged against the mattress, knife tumbling from her grip onto the small dresser she had beside her bunk. Daryl ran a hand through his hair and let the curtain flutter closed behind him, blocking out the snores from below.  
  


His nape was sticky with cold sweat, his scalp felt as if it had been pulled raw and his eyes burned. He had needed her more than ever and had been surprised not to find her beside him in the perch when he woke. It had taken an embarrassing while for him to remember that they hadn't spoken since he'd gotten back from his hunt. They'd passed each other at dinner, sat around listening to people trade stories, but they hadn't even so much as looked at each other.  
  


“Daryl, I-”  
  


Carol snapped her lips shut, apology dying on her tongue, as Daryl dropped down into her bunk beside her. His arms were tense around his chest, hands tucked under his arms; she didn't miss the way his eyes slid to her in the gloom, however, asking if this was alright. He'd get up if she asked him to, she knew he would.  
  


She gave him a long, slow nod, before pressing her hand to his forehead again. She'd chase away the demons, keep them from taking away his sleep. She'd made that promise to him without needing to say it.  
  


Daryl's arms slowly unwound from his chest, freeing himself for sleep. One hand bent awkwardly to settle on her hip, same as always, but the other didn't stay on his stomach. His fingertips touched the small crucifix hanging around her throat, pressing the cool metal gently against her skin.  
  


“Ya still pray?” Daryl asked, voice hushed in the shadows.  
  


She could feel his eyes on her, burning old scripture into her skin with every second that passed. He'd been thinking about what she said, about the mistake she'd made earlier that he hadn't allowed her to apologise for. Carol worried about his demons more than she did her own. She hadn't felt the need to put her faith into words in a very long time.  
  


“No.” Carol answered, the word heavy on her tongue. “No amount of prayin' is going to help me now.”  
  


He tilted his chin, lips fluttering against where her pulse hammered in her wrist. She kept a cool hand on his forehead, his eyes closed and her eyes stayed on him long after he had fallen asleep. Daryl didn't spit red demons that night, or the next night, or the night after that. He stayed in her bunk, slept in her arms, and Carol woke with her head pillowed against his chest each morning. He didn't run, she didn't hide, and the demons kept their distance.


	2. Chapter 2

They lay together in the dark, sweat cooling on their skin, their breathing masked by the rain outside. It had taken a trek to Hell and back for them to come together and stay together.  
  


The banishment, the prison, Terminus, Grady Memorial... All in the past now.  
  


Daryl ran his fingertips over her bare stomach, a smile twitching on his lips. Every inch of skin he touched bloomed with goosebumps, rippling as Carol gave a faint shiver. She had been half asleep, watching him as he lazily stroked patterns over her body.  
  


“Wh'sa matter? Can't believe I'm real?” She had teased, but the burning look he had given her spoke too much truth for her to handle.  
  


He had kissed her, then, with an unholy amount of passion for such a gentle thing. Daryl had handled her like she was made of glass, avoided her bruises, pressed his lips to her scars, her cuts, brought her to blasphemy more times than she could remember. Even now, with a gasp hanging on her lips like an _amen_ , he wasn't rough with her.  
  


Daryl touched her like she was an idol. Worshipped her. Made her feel the madness in his touch and the prayer on his lips that he would swear up and down was never there.  
  


They settled in the shadow of the back room with Carol against his side, her arm thrown across his chest and her head against the flat of his shoulder. _Just like old times_ , she thought, face against the crook of his neck. The nights when he had come to her, fearful and mumbling and feeling like scratching the names of ghosts into the walls in his grief, they had been tempered with mornings that had broken with an embrace like this.  
  


She remembered the first night he had come to her bunk and how her apology had felt like a sin in her mouth. That story had never been fully explained. What better time was there than the present, especially after all they had been through?  
  


“Do you remember me telling you about that story my aunt once told me about?”  
  


Daryl grunted an affirmative, one arm thrown over his eyes to blot out the early morning light filtering in through the window slats. Carol shifted to prop herself up on his chest, gently prying away that arm. They had been up all night blaspheming in the back room of a defiled church, but this was important.  
  


“She only ever told me that quote.” Carol's fingers danced across his skin as she spoke; they moved from his cheeks to his jaw, down to his neck, chest, returned and repeated. “ _Southern women like their men religious and a little mad._ I didn't understand it then. I was eighteen, a silly little thing in a small church town. When I met Ed, I thought I knew what she meant. _Religious and a little mad_ \- Well, Ed was mad alright, in both senses. He was touched and he was angry but I was young and all I did was pray for it to go away.”  
  


He knew how she'd prayed. He'd heard her in the church, while they were looking for Sophia, so long ago. How she'd prayed for God to punish him and He had taken her daughter as collateral. They'd spoken about it in the temporary housing, back in Atlanta, about how she'd prayed and put up with it but did nothing herself. She wasn't to blame for that. She wasn't to blame for any of it.  
  


“What's that gotta do with anythin'?” Daryl huffed, sensing that she was going to take a while to get to the point.  
  


His eyes were drawn back to her lips as she smiled, her fingers tapping along his collarbones. She played a rhythm there, tapping away, before snagging a kiss onto the corner of his mouth.  
  


“ _Southern women like their men religious and a little mad._ ” She said again, as if that explained the mysteries of the universe. “You've done some crazy things for me, Daryl Dixon. You might just be the right sort of 'mad'. And I might not pray any more, you might not believe in God, but we've had our share of miracles.”  
  


_Saving her from the farm. Finding her in the tombs. Being reunited after Terminus. Pulling her back from the clutches of Grady Memorial. Having her there, with him, alive._  
  


Daryl stroked his fingers through Carol's hair gently, leaving it sticking up this way and that in his wake. He traced them down over the cool skin of her nape, followed her neck down to her collar, down between her breasts where they sat against his chest. She watched when she could, until his hand returned to where her crucifix had once sat. It had been gone a long time, a painful reminder of everything she had left behind, and the space sat empty, her neck free of the thin chain.  
  


“Got everythin' I need right here.” Daryl hummed, tapping his fingers higher, lower, left to right. “Ain't no miracle in that. Just you an' me. Don't need God to give me you, never did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic inspired by the quote 'Southern women like their men religious and a little mad' from the USS Caryl's quote masterpost for the 'Heaven, hell and everything in between' challenge. 
> 
> First time publishing anything for the Caryl fandom and I really had fun with this!


End file.
